1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to paintball guns and, more particularly to novel systems and methods for feeding propellant and ammunition.
2. The Background Art
Paintball tag or combat has become a recreational activity favored by many players old and young. Paintball guns launch projectiles made of biodegradable, gelatinous shells surrounding a powder or paint content. Guns are carried in a manner similar to actual weapons, but typically cannot be fired as such.
Conventional paintball guns often operate similar to a fire hose. That is, so long as a trigger mechanism is engaged, by a user, a stream of balls is fed from a large hopper into the barrel of the gun. Meanwhile, a rather unwieldy canister containing compressed gas is carried on a belt, pack, or the like, by a user, to be released in a stream by a trigger. Accordingly, paintball guns appear to operate more like hoses than guns. Very little control is available over the expenditure of paintballs and compressed gas. Moreover, accuracy, conservation of ammunition, handling, and the like, are not similar to the same functions for conventional weapons. Moreover, the segregation of the gas supply and launcher (gun) tends to interfere with the overall sense of balance, operation, utility, aiming, and the like for paintball weapons.
What is needed is a paintball gun designed to look, feel, weigh, and operate very similarly to an actual weapon. Thus, integration of a gas supply within a weapon, making ammunition clips reloadable and exchangeable in a reasonable size, triggering, maximum loads, and so forth are all objectives to be met by a paintball gun suitable for replicating or approaching actual weapons.
Mechanisms for operating paintball guns may be designed in a variety of ways. One may design a lock or action of a gun to use gas from a compressed gas source to discharge projectiles. Another quantity of the same compressed gas may be used to actuate a firing mechanism, returning a trigger and actuation system to a ready-to-fire position.
One may also use a trigger mechanism to actuate multiple mechanisms. A trigger may actuate a valving system controlling and directing the flow of compressed gas as a propellant. Similarly, a gun trigger may provide catching and releasing a feed mechanism for paintballs.
What is needed is a mechanism for providing a firing bolt. The firing bolt should simultaneously control delivery of gas, including any porting, discharge, sealing, and the like, while also loading a projectile into a barrel for firing. It would be an advance in the art if a mechanism could be designed such that upon firing, a bolt automatically returns to a ready-to-fire position by virtue of a return mechanism other than consumption of additional compressed propellant.
It would be a further advance in the art to provide a gun trigger with a function requiring only selected catching and releasing of such a firing bolt. In such a mechanism, compressed propellant (e.g. gas) could be used for the single purpose of firing the projectile, with loading occurring automatically as part of the sequence. Thus, the entire mechanical workings of a gun may be greatly simplified while the efficiency of use of compressed propellant would require smaller containers therefor.
It would be a major advance in the art to combine an ammunition magazine in a single “clip.” Prior art systems contain a plumbing apparatus for storing compressed propellant and delivering it to a launcher (e.g. gun), operating much like a hose or piping system.
Meanwhile, massive hoppers drain a seemingly unending stream of paintballs into the flow path of the gas, launching them like so many beads in a chain. It would be a substantial advance in the art to provide a gun having sufficiently small requirements for propellant that a compact canister of propellant could be carried and maintained within the envelope typically associated with a conventional gun magazine. Moreover, it would be a major advance in the art to combine a clip of projectiles and compressed propellant into a single magazine, providing for quick reloading of the entire magazine with a single set of coordinated motions. Thus, having a clip or magazine containing both propellant and projectiles would be more nearly replicate the experience of loading and firing a conventional weapon. Thus, such an improved device may be most beneficial in training and simulation for law enforcement agencies.